Lost your password?

Originally known as the Carnegie Amateur Cycling club, the club traces its history back over 100 years.[1] Early races were typically handicap races over 10–60-mile road courses, often starting at the Rosstown Hotel before making their way along Dandenong Road.[2][3][4][5]

During the 1950s, Carnegie track racing, held at its local track Packer Park,[11] drew crowds of up to 4000 spectators[12] watching some of Australia’s best amateur and professional riders.[13] The quality of Carnegie’s track racing was a key driver behind the push by the NSW Cycling Union to move the 1956 Melbourne Olympics Track Cycling programme to the Carnegie velodrome after delays in the resurfacing of the Olympic Park Velodrome.[14] Although the push did not succeed – the Olympic Track program was held at Olympic Park – subsequent issues with the Olympic Track created a second push to move the Australian Titles (to be held after the Olympics) to the Carnegie Velodrome.[15]Club logo circa 1980

The club also played a big part in the local community, in particular through its support for the Oakleigh Carnival.[6][7] Around this time, the club formalised the first incarnation of its junior program recorded in 1931[8] after early success in the Victoria Club Premierships.[9] At the same time, Carnegie’s senior team also won major races.[10]

Carnegie’s track racing program become even more popular during the 1960s and 70’s with the Caulfield Cup on Wheels being the leading race for amateur cyclists in Melbourne,[16][17] often being held on the same night as the Melbourne Cup on Wheels, an equivalent race for professional cyclists.

In 1984, Carnegie Amateurs Cycling Club merged with Brighton-South Caulfield Professional Cyclists Association to form Carnegie Caulfield Cycling Club.[18]

More recently, the club’s summer criterium racing has become very popular, attracting some of the best riders in the World and is regularly covered in leading cycling publications including Cyclingnews.com.[19] This success, however, did attract some unwanted attention in 2013.[20]

The Home of Racing

Between October and April each summer, Carnegie Caulfield holds weekly criterium races on Sunday mornings at Glenvale Crescent, Mulgrave and on Tuesday evenings at Sandown International Raceway. Races are typically between 45 and 60 minutes and are conducted on circuits with little to no vehicle traffic. Racing caters for all levels of riders, from elite male and female professionals to juniors and novice riders. It is not uncommon for 300+ riders to attend a day’s racing.

At the elite end, A Grade has hosted some of the world’s best riders, including:

Glenvale Crescent has also hosted some of the world’s leading female riders, including:

For most of the season, women race alongside men, with prizes paid for the first ~3 women across the line in each grade (depending on overall numbers). There also 2–3 women’s only races held over the course of the summer criterium racing season.

The club also conducts a cycling clinic for junior riders at both Glendale Crescent and Sandown each week. Riders are taught bunch riding and racing skills by Tokyo Olympian Mick Hollingworth for around 20 minutes before they are set free to race for 10 minutes.

Race entries are accepted on the day.

Carnegie Caulfield’s summer criterium are internationally renowned and have been cited as some of the best racing in Australia.[31][32]

Multiple independent websites provided advice to new riders looking to get into racing with Carnegie Caulfield[33][34]

Honour Roll – On Wikipedia

The CCCC Name: Caulfied or Carnegie first?

 

Q: Even today I hear people refer to the club as Caulfield Carnegie Cycling Club. The history page has the logo showing “Carnegie and Caulfield”, but the text says Caulfield Carnegie Amateur Cycling Club.

Were Caulfield & Carnegie ever separate clubs? Why is one suburb shown before the other? What were the club’s various names through time, when were they changed and why?

– Grant Boydell

A: As best as I’ve been able to determine over the years (much of the clubs memorabilia was lost in a fire at the old club rooms at Packer Park), Carnegie was the amateur club and Caulfield was the pro’s. The merge of the 2 clubs was apparently pretty ground breaking as it preceded the UCI directive to end the distinction between the amateur and professional bodies world wide.

Our registered name since the merge is Carnegie Caulfield Cycling Club Inc, but the old timers who came from the pro side of things have always referred it the other way round, and it’s a hard habit to shake. I finally got Matt Keanan to change but he’s not doing much local commentating anymore!

Jack McGowan has an amazing memory of this sort of thing – he recently gave me an old club minutes book which had the date of the merge, and from this I put the following para together to answer a question from one of the government bodies we deal with.

The Carnegie Caulfield Cycling Club was founded in 1924 as the Carnegie Amateur Cycling Club. The advent of Open racing saw the Carnegie Amateurs merge with the Brighton-South Caulfield Professional Cyclists Association in July 1984, and adopt the name “Carnegie Caulfield Cycling Club Inc”.
It also sounds like that in the era after WWII, many of the other pro clubs in the area amalgamated with Brighton-South Caulfield, which was the strongest, due to a lack of officials and volunteers – some things never change!

– Mal Sawford

Photos from Sean Roberts

Thanks to Sean Roberts for sending through these great photos featuring his grandfather Vin Murphy.

Also great to see what our long serving past president Jack McGowan looked like in his racing days – most of us are more familiar with him these days as a marshal at Glenvale every week.

We’re always thrilled to receive history and memorabilia relating to the club.

 

Photos from Mick Hollingworth (click to view)

Thanks to Mick Hollingworth for sending in his photos. Click on the thumbnails to view full size.

 

Photos from Tom Moloney (click to view)

Thanks to Tom Moloney for sending in his photos. Click on the thumbnails to view full size.

 

Photos from Gary Woodfall (click to view)

Thanks to Gary Woodfall for sending in his photos. Click on the thumbnails to view full size.

 

Photos from Chris Salisbury (click to view)

Thanks to Chris “The Snake” Salisbury for lending his photo albums for scanning. Click on the thumbnails to view full size and read the commentary provided by Mike Goldie.

 

Photos from Hilton Clarke (click to view)

Thanks to Hilton Clarke for some great photos from his own collection. Click on the thumbnails to view full size and read the commentary provided by Mike Goldie.

 

Photos from Mike Goldie (click to view)

Thanks to Mike Goldie for getting the ball rolling and submitting the below photos from his own collection. Click on the thumbnails to view full size and read the commentary.

Photos from Troy Clarke (click to view)

Team Melbourne Elite Sport, Circa 1995/96 Summer at Carnegie Velodrome.

From left to right: 

Troy Clarke, Stephen Pate, Fleur Peppard, Hilton Clarke, Tony Homan, Scott McGrory & John Kennedy

Coach: Hilton Clarke Snr

Managaer: Mark Hindmarsh